


Someone Will Love You (But Someone Isn't Me)

by harrythe



Category: Big Time Rush (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 05:58:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14514024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrythe/pseuds/harrythe
Summary: He loves Kendall more than anyone else in the world, and yet it still isn't enough





	Someone Will Love You (But Someone Isn't Me)

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to Halsey’s song “Sorry” for this fic. Not a happy ending, per say, depending on the way you ship your ships. Also, shoutout to Ronie for helping me etch out the details. Let’s just say I threw around a few pairings for this fic, and a few different endings, before settling on this.

He doesn’t know what love is. He’s never understood it, never craved it in the way that people write songs, tell stories, go searching for it in the wrong places. Love isn’t something that he has time for, isn’t something that he wants. Maybe he was genetically built wrong, maybe something in his childhood irreversibly broke him. Maybe it’s his focus on being rich and famous, and driving the girls wild that makes him not want to find that sort of love. He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t particularly care to find out.

It’s not even that he doesn’t have the capacity for love. He loves his mother, loves all her hard edges, distant phone calls and empty promises that mean nothing to him anymore. He loved his father, in some distant, abstract, sense, for the man who had the courage to leave to leave and find the love that James has never craved.

He loves his friends, loves who he is around them. The dreamer, the idealist, the bright and shining star. He loves Carlos, loves the way his friend always look for the brightside, loves the way that for Carlos, everyone is a good person, no matter how badly they mess up. He loves Carlos like he was his own brother, desperate to create some sort of family, to make up for the one he never had. He loves Logan, loves that Logan keeps him grounded, reminds him of the here and now, and not just the far off some days. Logan is his anchor, and most people might interpret that to mean that Logan is weighing him down, but it’s not like that, not for James. Logan helps him keep his feet on the ground, when his head is too far in the clouds.

And he loves Kendall. He loves that Kendall is his biggest supporter, his pillar of strength. He loves that Kendall knows him better than anyone else, that he and Kendall are sometimes so inseparable that it’s hard to tell where Kendall ends and James begins. He loves who Kendall pushes him to be, the good guy, the hero. He loves that Kendall enveloped him into his family, helped him carve out a piece of his own. He loves who Kendall is, the good guy, the hero, the person who loves fiercely, and will protect no matter the cost. Kendall makes him feel safe, Kendall gives him a home.

He loves Kendall more than anyone else in the world, and yet it’s still not enough.

Kendall craves that melody that flows through people’s hearts, the story that their pulse beats out, the love that has him searching in all the wrong places. He loves Kendall, he does, but not the way that Kendall loves him. His love for Kendall is never going to be enough, never going to be reciprocated. And it isn’t that he wishes he could, because he does. He wishes he could love Kendall the way Kendall deserves to be loved, he just isn’t capable of that kind of love. He’s tried, he has willed himself to love Kendall in that way, prayed to some unknown God that he’s not sure he believes in, but nothing works. He will never be in love with anyone, not even Kendall.

Maybe in some other universe they were happy. Maybe they were together. Maybe there was a James who loved Kendall back. Maybe they’ve carved out a life together, and there was never any doubt, or the would haves, should haves, could haves. Maybe there’s a James who is not too damaged, too broken, incapable of that kind of love. And that’s where James aches to be. He craves that dream the same way he craves his fame. He wishes for it, prays for it, hopes that the other James treats Kendall the way he deserves, because he would swap their places in a heartbeat. He hopes they’re happy, because he cannot bear to think of them as anything else.

Because despite what anyone might ever think, or assume, Kendall’s love is killing him, slowly crushing him from the inside out, because he doesn’t return that love. People talk of the agony of loving someone who doesn’t love them, but they never talk of the agony of the person who so desperately wishes they could love, the agony of knowing they would love them back, if they had the chance. The agony of knowing they’ll never be enough.

This thing between them, it had started slowly, a touch here, a kiss there. It escalated before James could catch it, and pull it back. It had started even before he knew what was happening, and he wishes he could go back to those first few moments, so he had the chance to stop it. But, even then, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Some dark twisted part of himself wants to keep it going for forever, craves the gentle way that Kendall would hold him, melts into the feeling of being loved, even when he doesn’t return it, despite how badly he wanted to. He couldn’t give it up, even as Logan, ever perceptive, ever protective, warned him to end it, that Kendall was falling hard and fast, and would likely never recover, because of who Kendall is, and who Kendall and James are. And James wanted to, oh he wanted to, but then Kendall would come around, and before James knew it, his body was blanketing Kendall’s, as he moved into him, over him, and he couldn’t bring himself to end it. It was like a drug, and he knew he had to quit, knew that he wasn’t being fair, but he couldn’t care. He still clung to the desperate hope that he would love Kendall back, even when he knew that he couldn’t. He would never. And so it continued.

Kendall actually tells him he loves him in those three little words one week before their lives change forever.

Snow is falling gently outside the window, and they’re cuddled together under the fleece blankets that James’ mother had insisted he put on his bed so he didn’t catch his death with a cold. Sweat is cooling on their bodies, and James knows they should move to clean up before anything dries, but his limbs feel heavy, and he snuggles further into the bed, inadvertently pulling Kendall closer. The lights are dimmed, and the room fairly glows with the light of the moon. It could be the scene of a romantic comedy, and perhaps that is why Kendall says those three words.

It would have been perfect, had James been in love with Kendall too.

And James can either lie to him, and tell him that he loves him too, or he can ignore it, and kiss Kendall to distract him from the fact that he never said it back.

James has never been good at doing either, so he chooses option three.

James tells Kendall the truth, that he doesn’t love him. That Kendall’s name doesn’t make his heart beat faster, his mind race with the possibilities of a future together. And Kendall, ever caring, ever understanding Kendall, tells him that it’s okay. That it doesn’t matter. That James doesn’t need to say it, if he doesn’t feel it. And Kendall hopes that James will say it back eventually, that he’ll grow to love James, even if Kendall has to wait awhile.

Sometimes Kendall completely misses the point.

In the end, James doesn’t have to worry about ever saying it back, because Gustavo Rocque comes storming into their lives, promising everything James has ever wanted.

And Kendall ends up inadvertently stealing that future from him, without even blinking.

It’s their first fight since they started being them, and he can tell how much Kendall is hurting from this. His “I love you” is echoing around James’ head and heart, filling up the space where James’ love should be.

Of course, it doesn’t take them long to make up, though Kendall’s supposed betrayal still burns in his heart a little. Still tears apart his insides.

And when they arrive in LA it seems only natural that they stop sleeping together, because they have nowhere to go, nowhere to try and hide their relationship, not that they were doing so on purpose, but they have an image now, a brand they are trying to build. And though Kendall still loves him, still glances at him when he thinks no one else is looking, the pain evident in his eyes as James slips further and further away, Kendall doesn’t fight for them they way James thought he would. Kendall lets him go, lets him breathe, lets him fly.

And fly he does. He blossoms in the LA heat, and under the LA stars. And yeah, there are a few hiccups those first few days, but it’s fine. James holds onto the dream for dear life, throws himself into everything he can. James takes to this stardom like a duck to water, and it doesn’t even feel like he’s leaving Kendall behind.

And then Jo comes crashing into their life.

Jo is everything that Kendall needs. Jo is sweet, kind, selfless, the perfect match for Kendall, in a way that James never could be. She’s soft, where James is hard, open, where James has closed himself off. Jo could be Kendall’s soulmate, and it’s with that thought, that James pushes Kendall towards her. Kendall’s confused, because he still doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand no matter how many times James tells him, that he’s not in love with him. He’ll never be in love with him. James had no idea that Kendall was still holding out some kind of hope for them.

This is when Kendall tries to fight him, fight for him. They fight for hours, so much so that everyone has vacated the apartment. Kendall breaks down at one point, as it gets to be too much, sitting on his bed, exhausted, only to spring up a few minutes later with renewed energy, ready to fight for them. It lasts for hours, but in the end, Kendall goes, heart sunk in defeat, because he can’t fight for something that James isn’t willing to fight for too. It’s a lonely fight when you’re the only one.

James watches him go, with a small sliver of satisfaction, and gratefulness that Jo’s eyes brighten when she sees Kendall near.

James ignores the way Logan looks at him in thankfulness afterwards, finally happy that James let Kendall go. The way that Logan squeezes his shoulder in a gesture that could only be defined as gratitude, because no matter how much Logan loves James, and is his best friend, Logan will always love Kendall just slightly more. Kendall is Logan’s best friend, in a way that James never could be, and that’s okay. For now, James is grateful for it, grateful that Kendall has someone to turn to, now that James is out of the picture.

James also ignores the pitying glances Carlos sends his way, because Carlos never understood how James couldn’t love Kendall. And it’s not that Carlos is dumb, naive,  or short sighted, he just has a little too much hope for humanity. Carlos believes in fairytale loves, and happily ever afters, and it’s just too painful for Carlos to see Kendall so broken, and James just not. And Carlos is his best friend, in the way that Logan is Kendall’s. And he and Carlos grow even closer, throw out whacky, hairbrained shenanigans that never end in disaster, as a way to come back together.

And in the end, James and Kendall rebuild some sort of tentative friendship, because they can’t not be in each other’s lives. They’re James and Kendall still, always will be.

And it’s interesting to watch Kendall fall in love with someone else. It’s interesting to watch Kendall’s eyes slide towards Jo instead of him. It fascinates him to watch Kendall sneak out at night, off to see Jo, when just a few short months ago, it was Kendall sneaking out to see him. And had the circumstances been different, had James actually fallen in love with Kendall before, before he met Jo, before Gustavo, before they started sleeping together, just before, it would have hurt. It would have crushed him to the very soul, because in another life, in another universe, another time, another world, that could have been him. But it’s not. Because James doesn’t love Kendall. He never has, and he never will.

And everything falls into place like a song, like a story. James and Kendall becomes Jo and Kendall, where one isn’t often without the other. It’s everything that Kendall ever wanted, and everything James wanted for him the moment that Kendall told him he loved him. And James isn’t jealous, because they’re still James and Kendall, but it’s different now, it’s better now. Without Kendall’s feelings, the tenseness is gone, the heartache. It’s like when they were kids, where everything was free and easy, and there’s no damage left behind. It’s an ideal world, or as ideal as it could be, given the circumstances.

It’s a bit of a surprise to find Jo at his door later. It’s even more of a surprise to him that Jo knows and wants to talk about the past. He doesn’t know how she knows, because he’s certain that Kendall would never tell, at least without telling him first. He’d protect their secret to the death, if he ever needed to.

He’s even more surprised when Jo thanks him. Thanks him for pushing Kendall to her, for letting him go. For loving him enough to send him away.

James protests that he doesn't love Kendall, that he can’t love Kendall.

Jo just smiles, and tells him that she knows, but she’s grateful just the same.

And they never talk about it again, but it’s there. It’s in the way that when Kendall kisses her goodbye, Jo’s eyes slide towards James, gratitude reflected in them. It’s in the way James and Kendall find a rhythm again, different, and better. It’s in the way that when James makes it big, when James finally achieves his dreams, he looks back at where Kendall is standing in the sidelines, his arm around Jo, and for once, there isn’t anything but pride in there. It’s in the way that when Kendall breaks eye contact, his eyes slide to Jo, who looks back at Kendall and there’s so much love and affection between the two of them it causes James to lose his breath.

And there’s no regret here. There’s no room for it. There’s only happiness, and joy. He’s happy Kendall found the love he deserves. And maybe in another universe, they were happy together. Maybe in another universe it would have been different. But here, in this universe? They’re not, and it’s finally okay.

* * *

_ And someone will love you, someone will love you, someone will love you, but someone isn’t me _

**Author's Note:**

> Don't hate me. I wanted to try something a little different for once. Not all love stories have happy endings, you know?


End file.
